And Lizzie was only trying to help. He’d heard it whispered that she was the only one standing between him and being sent elsewhere.
“It would be the way you described your headaches when you were first admitted. But you remember that, Mateo. Which means you’re in one of your moods now. You think you can smile your way through it and maybe the staff won’t notice that you’re not working toward a better recovery? Well, I notice. Every little detail.” She smiled back at him. “I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t.”
“So, I’m part of your duty?”
“You’re one of the patients here. That’s all. Whatever I choose to do, like go for a walk with you, is because I understand where you are right now.”
“Do you, Lizzie?” he asked, his voice turning dark. “Do you really? I mean, even if I do retain knowledge of the procedural side of the surgeries I used to perform, would you honestly want a surgeon who comes to do your appendectomy and doesn’t even remember what kind of suture he prefers?”
Lizzie laughed, giving the wheelchair one more push toward him. This time it bumped his knees, so he could no longer ignore it.
“Sometimes I wonder if someone should change your diagnosis to retrograde amnesia with a secondary symptom of being overly dramatic. You’re a challenge, Mateo, that’s for sure. And, just between us, an open appendectomy skin closure works best with an absorbable intradermic stitch. Although if you’re doing the procedure laparoscopically, all it takes is a couple of dissolvable stitches on the inside and skin glue on the outside.”
“And you know this because...?”
“I’ve done a few stitches in my time. That’s part of being a PCP. So quit being so dramatic. It doesn’t score points with me, if that’s what you’re trying to do.”
Well, he might have gaps in his memory, including the kind of women he’d been drawn to, but Lizzie certainly held his attention now. Petite, bouncy. Smart. Serious as hell. And that was the part that didn’t escape him. Lizzie Peterson was a great big bundle of formidable perfection all tied up in a small package.
Maybe that was what intrigued him the most. He couldn’t picture himself with someone like her. Of course, in his recent spotty memory he couldn’t picture himself with anybody, including his former fiancée.
“Not overly dramatic. I’m allergic to flowers, which is why I don’t want to go to the garden.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“Then why, just a few minutes ago, did you want to go out?”
“Maybe I wasn’t allergic a few minutes ago. Maybe it was a sudden onset aversion.”
“Well, it’s your choice, Mateo. Your life is out there somewhere. Maybe it’s not the one you want, but it’s the one you’re going to be stuck with. You can make your own choices with it, but what you do now will affect what you do later on. And there is a ‘later on’ coming up. You can’t keep postponing it indefinitely.”
She started to walk away but turned back for a final word. She smiled when she saw that he was in the wheelchair, ready to go. Why not? he thought. Nothing else was happening in his life. So why not take a stroll in the garden? Or, in his case, a roll.
He gave Lizzie a deliberate scowl, which turned so quickly into a smile it almost caught her off-guard. “Is there any way I can talk you out of the wheelchair?”
“Nope. I play by the hospital rules and you play by my rules. So, here’s the deal. You cooperate.”
“Or what?”
“That’s all there is to it. You cooperate.”
“Isn’t a deal supposed to be two-sided?”
“Maybe your deals are, but mine aren’t. I like getting my way, Mateo. And when I don’t, I’m the one who gets grumpy. Trust me—my grumpy out-grumpys yours any day of the week, so don’t try me.”
He liked Lizzie. Trusted her. Wanted to impress her even though that was a long way from happening. “OK. Well...if that’s all you’re offering.”
“A walk is a walk, Mateo. Nothing else. So don’t go getting ideas.”
“You mean this is a pity walk?”
“Something like that. You cooperate and I’ll do my best to help you. If you don’t cooperate...” She smiled. “I’m sure you can guess the rest.”
He could, and he didn’t like it. This was a good facility, and as a doctor he recognized that. But as a patient he didn’t even recognize himself—and that was the problem. When he looked in the mirror, he didn’t know the face that looked back. The eyes, nose and mouth were the same, but there was nothing in his eyes. No sign of who he was or used to be.
And he was just plain scared.
“Big date? You wish,” she said on her way out through the door, pushing Mateo in front of her.
Today was Lizzie’s thirteenth day on without a break. But she had her nights to herself and found that if she worked hard enough during the day she could sleep through her nighttime demons. So, she worked until she was ready to drop, often stopped by The Shack for something tall and tropical, then went home and slept. So far it was working. Thoughts of her dad’s death weren’t invading every empty moment as much as they’d used to.
Leaning back to the wall, just outside the door, Mateo extricated himself from his wheelchair—which was totally against the rules.
“Is he getting to you?” Janis Lawton asked, stopping to hand Lizzie a bottle of water.
Janis was chief of surgery at Makalapua Pointe Hospital. The one in charge. The one who made the rules and made sure they weren’t broken. And the one who was about to send Mateo to another facility on the mainland if he wasn’t careful.
“I know the nurses are having problems with him.” Janis leaned against the wall next to Lizzie and fixed her attention on Mateo, who’d rolled his chair off the walkway and seemed to be heading for the reflecting pond. “But the thing is, he’s so darned engaging and nice most of the time. Then when he’s not cooperative, or when he’s refusing therapy... It’s hard justifying why he’s here when my waiting list is so long.”
“Because he needs help. Think about what you’d do if you suddenly couldn’t be a surgeon anymore.”
“I do, Lizzie. All the time. And that’s why Mateo keeps getting the benefit of the doubt. I understand exactly what’s happening. The rug is being pulled out from under him.” She held up her right hand, showing Lizzie a massive scar. “That was almost me. It took me a year of rehab to get back to operating and in the early days... Let’s just say that I was more like Mateo than anyone could probably imagine. But as director of the hospital I have some lines I must draw. And Mateo isn’t taking that seriously. Maybe you could...?”
Lizzie held up her hand to stop the older woman. “It’s an evening walk. That’s all. No agenda. No hospital
